CRSA Panel at College Art Association Annual Conference

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

4:30–6pm ET

In-person session

Chair: Abigael MacGibeny, Joan Mitchell Catalogue Raisonné

Certain forms of art historical documentation, such as catalogues raisonnés, have become authoritative statements of an artist’s relation to the canon, with patterns and habits that have evolved regarding descriptive terms, classifications, and language. Yet traditional publication formats and controlled vocabularies don’t always accommodate content that requires reinterpretation in light of current developments in art history and society itself.

The digital turn presents challenges and opportunities: how can we include artists, media, ways of working that don’t fit rubrics established long ago? How can we bridge the past to the present, including contextualizing language and images that have different and sometimes troubling meanings today? How can we update the ways in which we present data while preserving the intent of traditional forms of documentation? How can these changes in turn provide new data, ideas, and possibilities to art history and adjacent fields?

Papers

What is a "Critical Response”?: Recasting Authority in Museum Cataloguing Practice

Bailey Placzek, Clyfford Still Museum

Artist photograph caption: Portrait of Clyfford Still by Sandra Still Campbell, 1973. Image courtesy the Clyfford Still Archives © Sandra Still

A Racial Reckoning: Cataloguing Romare Bearden

Camara D. Holloway, Wildenstein Plattner Institute

Artist photograph caption: Bearden in Studio with Artwork [page 3 of 51], undated; Romare Bearden Papers [c4e0w999], The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.

Language of Landscape: The Frederic Edwin Church Digital Cataloguing Project, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Casey Monroe, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Artwork caption: Frederic Edwin Church, Parade Entering Jaffa, Palestine (Tel Aviv, Israel), 1868